Beginning today, and through this weekend, there's a possibility of YNP closing due to heavy precipitation along the Merced, which is already well above flood stage. If it's anything like '97, and the Valley infrastructure is badly damaged, it might take some time to reopen, so stay abreast of the situation.

I don't know about that. The main force of the front is supposed to come in right about at that latitude.

For that hike up, when it does happen, I would, in addition to snowshoes, bring at least some microspikes, if not crampons. The Snow Creek trail is largely steeper and tighter than snowshoes might be good for. In fact, I would call it more a climb than hike. Beforehand, you might also want to check into the avalanche danger, wear a beacon, and at least have a phone- you're going up right under a leeward cliff face almost the entire way up. They're talking about close to 10 feet at higher altitudes this weekend alone.

With the cabin- if it's been used recently and not shut down due to overuse, you might not have to do a ton of digging. And it's actually quite a ways up from the top of the Snow Creek trail/footbridge...closer to Watkins and off trail up by the next trail junction to the N/E. You're guaranteed to be trashed by the time you get there, so think twice before you even think you might have enough energy to shovel snow.

I would go hiking in SF. Or the Santa Cruz mountains. Let things consolidate -- even if it is half that amount of snow, no way I want to posthole three feet into fresh powder with snowshoes. We're going to Dewey at the end of the month after they re-plow the road and we can get to Badger.

Yeah, it's a lot of work getting up there, even in summer. Most people that visit in the winter are skiing it, and descending, not snowshoeing from below, and from the Valley it's about 4000 ft of vertical gain. The Snow Creek trail alone is about 2600 of it, then you level off along the flats, then do another steep climb to the junction. If there aren't any tracks, or you're alone, you better have masterful winter navigational skills that you don't doubt in the least. Sorry I don't have them for you, but a set of exact coordinates would be a good thing to have, especially if you come in in the dark, which is a real possibility this time of year.

No reservations, you have to show up at the Valley Wilderness Center the day of or before, and there are only 6 slots available. For conditions, call the NPS general info number to get the latest. If you're going to do it, as a backup, have a tent or bivy and full winter survival gear. I did it once up years ago for the novelty in better conditions than now...never again. Not only brutal, but with this much snow, you're running a real risk of being the perfect trigger for what's above your head for about four hours.

"Most people like to look at mountain rivers, and bear them in mind; but few care to look at the winds, though far more beautiful and sublime, and though they become at times about as visible as flowing water. When the north winds in winter are making upward sweeps over the curving summits of the High Sierra, the fact is sometimes published with flying snow-banners a mile long. Those portions of the winds thus embodied can scarce be wholly invisible, even to the darkest imagination. And when we look around over an agitated forest, we may see something of the wind that stirs it, by its effects upon the trees. Yonder it descends in a rush of water-like ripples, and sweeps over the bending pines from hill to hill. Nearer, we see detached plumes and leaves, now speeding by on level currents, now whirling in eddies, or, escaping over the edges of the whirls, soaring aloft on grand, upswelling domes of air, or tossing on flame-like crests. Smooth, deep currents, cascades, falls, and swirling eddies, sing around every tree and leaf, and over all the varied topography of the region with telling changes of form, like mountain rivers conforming to the features of their channels.

"After tracing the Sierra streams from their fountains to the plains, marking where they bloom white in falls, glide in crystal plumes, surge gray and foam-filled in boulder-choked gorges, and slip through the woods in long, tranquil reaches--after thus learning their language and forms in detail, we may at length hear them chanting all together in one grand anthem, and comprehend them all in clear inner vision, covering the range like lace. But even this spectacle is far less sublime and not a whit more substantial than what we may behold of these storm-streams of air in the mountain woods.

"We all travel the milky way together, trees and men; but it never occurred to me until this storm-day, while swinging in the wind, that trees are travelers, in the ordinary sense. They make many journeys, not extensive ones, it is true; but our own little journeys, away and back again, are only little more than tree-wavings--many of them not so much.

"When the storm began to abate, I dismounted and sauntered down through the calming woods. The storm-tones died away, and, turning toward the east, I beheld the countless hosts of the forests hushed and tranquil, towering above one another on the slopes of the hills like a devout audience. The setting sun filled them with amber light, and seemed to say, while they listened, "My peace I give unto you."

"As I gazed on the impressive scene, all the so called ruin of the storm was forgotten, and never before did these noble woods appear so fresh, so joyous, so immortal. "